Love The One You're With
by PineappleGrenade
Summary: A Sims Medieval fanfic. When bloodletter Merylana sees the spy Irfan coming to visit her, she has no idea of the trouble he is bringing straight to her door!
1. Chapter 1

I was in the garden, gathering plants for that morning's batch of healing salves and wishing for a drink, when I looked up to see Irfan approaching. His dark robes and hood were an incongruous shadow against the sunlit green grass. Smiling to myself, I bent back to my work.

"For the King;s own appointed spy, you make an awful lot of noise when you walk," I commented as he came to a stop beside me. "I could hear you breathing a mile off."

His dark eyes regarded me for a long moment, then his face broke out into a grin. "It's your own fault for living at the top of this damnable hill." Still grinning, he put his hands on his knees and drew in a few deep breaths. I detected a rattle deep within his broad chest. For all his muscular strength, his lungs were weak. They always had been.

I looked down at the bundle of herbs in my arms. "I was just about to make breakfast. Would you care to join me?"

"It would be an honour."

After the heat of the day, it felt cold inside. A couple of patients were waiting for me, one of them perusing my bookshelves, but it didn't look like anything my capable assistant couldn't handle on his own. I lead Irfan through the surgery to the back stairs that lead up to the rooms I keep above the surgery. Once up there I sorted through my bundle, picking out the wispy grass-seed stems that are no good in salves and unguents, but do make an excellent porridge. I gave them to Irfan so that he could get started on making the breakfast, and I crossed the room to the wine cask and poured myself a drink, trying to conceal my desperation.

"Anything to drink, Irfan?" I asked, after draining half my goblet. By the Watcher, I felt so much better.

Irfan looked at me strangely, but merely shook his head. "No, thank you."

Soon we were sat at my small wooden table, steaming bowls of porridge before us. Irfan pushed his hood down and ran a hand over his shaved scalp. He looked tired, I noted. I also spotted a fresh bruise high on his cheekbone, ugly against his smooth, clean-shaven skin.

"Got caught breaking one of the King's 'trading associates' out of the stocks again?"

He blinked, then touched his fingertips to the mark. "Yes, although I only spent a couple of hours in the stocks for it myself. More than enough time to get pelted with a couple of rotten eggs, it seems." He made a face.

"Either the aim of the townsfolk is deteriorating, or you've gotten better at avoiding projectiles aimed at your eyes."

Irfan shrugged good-naturedly at my jibe.

"Do you remember the first time we met?" I asked with a laugh. "You couldn't have been more than a couple of days new to the job when you came to me with an inflamed eye. It took me a while to get the truth out of you, but when I'd removed the last of the pips from beneath your eyelid, you opened up and told me you'd gotten caught breaking someone out of the stocks, been put in them as punishment where you'd taken a rotten tomato to the eye."

"I remember. You should have gone into the spying profession yourself, the way you managed to extract the truth so skilfully from me. I suppose it was to your advantage that you had a sharp implement close to my eye."

I matched his grin.

"And you've been my good and true friend ever since," he continued, turning serious. "Which is why, Merylana, I have come to you now." He gave me a rueful smile. "It seems I need your help once again. I've asked Dame Constance to marry me."

"But Irfan, that's wonderful news! I've always thought the two of you make such a handsome couple." I started to reach across the table to embrace him, but thought better of it and picked up my goblet instead. It wasn't jealousy that stopped me, I t old myself, not some ember of bitter disappointment. My throat was dry, I needed to wet it. Besides, given Irfan's new situation it would have been improper for me, a young unmarried woman, to hug him. Especially here in my private rooms. I knew what high ideas of chivalry Irfan had – more akin to those of a knight than a professional spy, but unfortunately his expertise did not lie in a knight's area.

"But why do you need my help?"

"Last night, I received a visitor in my chambers..."

I leapt up, laying a reassuring hand on my friend's shoulder. "Say no more about it. I have just the thing downstairs. Tell Dame Constance to drink it as soon as possible, otherwise..."

Irfan blushed and squirmed in his chair. "No, no, it's nothing like that. I haven't compromised my dear Constance's honour. Sit down Merylana.

"No, my visitor was Basilea the Sly. We were friends long ago, when I lived across the sea. More than friends, in fact, were childhood sweethearts. She says she has come here to make a new life for herself. On learning I was here also, she wanted to talk of old times, but when I saw her I realised that I still have feelings for her. I still love her. You're a wise woman, Merylana, what should I do?

"You have to make a decision."

"Help me to choose between them. Please?"


	2. Chapter 2

That afternoon, after tending to my patients and replenishing my leech stock, I visited the castle. I was there under the pretext of delivering a healing salve to one of the royal guard, but my real mission was to get to know Irfan's beloveds. I couldn't believe the fix he had gotten himself into. It was typical of him, really. Especially his turning to me to help him get out of the trouble he had created for himself. As if it wasn't difficult enough for someone of his position and social status to marry a noblewoman, he had to complicate it with falling for a woman who could very well be a spy for a foreign kingdom.

The castle's feasting hall was packed, as usual. The energetic lilt of a lute filled the room right up to the high ceiling. A small crowd was gathered around the lute-playing jester. Some clapped their hands in time to the music, whilst others danced. It was a joyful scene and not one that I felt I had any right to disturb. So instead, I hovered beside the wine casks, goblet in hand, breathing in the warm smell of baking bread from the kitchen next door.

I thought myself the only one not joining in the revels, until I spotted a lonely form swathed in the shadows cast by the heavy wooden doors. Gimlet eyes glittered out of the darkness. Only a trained spy could lurk in such a brooding manner. I deduced that the figure was none other than Basilea the Spy – Irfan's childhood sweetheart. Gathering my nerve, I was just about to go over to her when the jester's song ended. The crowd around him dispersed, momentarily blocking my view of Basilea. When I looked again, she was gone.

I was so busy searching for her that I didn't hear anyone approach me until a voice spoke practically in my ear.

"Merylana! My Irfy-wirfy has told me so much about you, it's a pleasure to finally meet!"

_Irfy-wirfy?_

I turned and dropped into a curtsey. "Dame Constance, you honour me."

She laughed, a pretty, musical sound, and took my hand to raise me from my curtsey. I looked up at her. She really was beautiful, I could see why Irfan was so smitten. She wore a gown cut in the latest style, made of a dusky rose-red material that perfectly complimented her pale skin and auburn hair. Her hair was tied back and secured with a flower the same colour as her dress. I felt dumpy and ugly beside her, in my practical smock and bonnet, beneath which my hair was lank through lack of attention.

"I've been wanting to speak with you a while," Dame Constance said, slipping her arm through mine as if she had known me all her life, "It's about that paper you wrote for a recent medical journal. I try to read all the medical journals, it's something of a hobby of mine. Now, I've heard it said by doctors across the ocean that..."

We talked for a long time. Dame Constance was well-read and could speak with depth and clarity on a number of subjects ranging from medicine to music to the political state of the kingdom. I lost count of the number of times she made me laugh. By the time she was called away to attend a council session, I was thoroughly charmed by her.

I left the castle for the sunshine, lost in thought. I hadn't gone far before someone grabbed me from behind and wrestled me into the shadow cast by the hill the path was cut into. I struggled furiously until I felt the cold touch of a blade against my throat.

"Why do you seek me?" A hard, accented voice hissed.

"How can I tell unless I see who it is I'm supposed to be seeking," I snapped.

I was spun around, the knife still pressed against my skin. Confronting me was a dark-skinned woman with striking, if somewhat ruthless features. From what I could make out of her figure beneath the heavy black robes she wore, it was broad but unlike the pampered merchants, her body radiated power. It was her eyes I recognised. They glinted like precious gems from the stern bedrock of her face.

"Basilea?" I asked.

Her top lip curled in a snarl. "Who wants to know?"

"I am Merylana, a friend of Irfan's. I mean you no harm. Irfan told me about your coming here to Solhaven and I merely wanted to make your acquaintance."

She regarded me silently for a moment. "Your ways are strange, but your face is honest." The knife glinted in the sunlight and then was gone. Her hands were empty. She must have noticed my look of amazement, for a smile flitted briefly across her face. Another beauty, I realised. No wonder Irfan was having such trouble deciding.

"I believe you have made my acquaintance now, Merylana friend of Irfan's. Will that be all?" Her eyes still glittered, but now their sparkle seemed to be more from amusement than anger.

Wrongfooted, I was only able to stutter "Well, yes, I suppose so, thank you. It was a pleasure."

With a twitch of her robes, Basilea the Sly was gone.

I found Irfan outside the blacksmith's, kicking at pebbles whilst he waited for his sword to be sharpened.

"Well?" he asked without preamble.

I leant against the wall beside him and folded my arms. "They are both beautiful. And witty. And yes, I dare say charming. Although your childhood sweetheart did try to slit my throat."

"She can be a little standoffish," Irfan conceded and I rolled my eyes. "Are you hurt?"

"No, we managed to come to an understanding before any blood could be spilt."

"Good. Yet you have no preference between the two?"

"I think they would both make an excellent wife to you, in their own unique ways. But Irfan, you have to consider what it is you're doing. Dame Constance is a noblewoman, courting her displeasure would be to invite the King's wrath." I shuddered. "You could end up being fed to the pit beast."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that it would be politically wiser if you were to keep your engagement with Dame Constance and forget about Basilea."

"What does the heart care for politics?" Irfan declared dramatically. "What cares it for social standing and wealth? The heart wants what the heart needs and love is the..."

Seeing that he was about to start poignantly pontificating, I hurriedly interrupted. "So you're going to marry Basilea instead?"

He slumped. "I don't know. I love both her and Constance. I am still undecided.

"There is more to being a wife than beauty, charm and wit. The perfect wife must also be loyal to her man. Tempt them, Merylana, bestow favours upon them and woo them for me. Whomsoever spurns your advances shall be my wife."

"Damnit Irfan, I'm a doctor not a seductress," I snapped. Angry and frustrated with him, wanting no more part in his schemes, I walked away.

Back home, the town crier was sat in the waiting room. I diagnosed him with a sore throat and told him to rest his voice. I spent the rest of the evening writing up notes before dragging myself up to my rooms. I ate cold seed porridge alone.

Sleep was a long time in coming. After staring at the ceiling for hours, I got back up and assuaged my thirst at the wine cask.


	3. Chapter 3

When I awoke the next morning, I decided on a walk to the village shoppe to clear my head. I got as far as the town square, only to spot Basilea standing by the well, staring moodily down at the water. I could have walked on, she hadn't seen me, but then I thought of Irfan and how he needed my help. Poor Irfan, in love with being in love, his head filled with foolish romance. Taking a deep breath, I walked over to Basilea.

"Well met, Lady," I greeted her, leaning against the well beside her.

The lines of her face were stern, her brows drawn together in a scowl, yet when she spoke her voice was mellow. "Making my acquaintance once was not enough then, Merylana?"

"No," I replied and was surprised to find how sincerely I meant it.

We stood in silence, gazing down at the well. Our reflections were smeared dashes of colour on the surface of the murky water. Without warning, Basilea leant forwards and spat. Ripples spread out, breaking our reflections into fragments.

"Did you make a wish?" I asked.

As if she hadn't heard my question, she asked one of her own. "Do you know what it is like to travel across the ocean? To try and make a life in a new country?"

I was confused by this sudden questioning, but answered. "No. I was born here and I will most like as not die here. Sometimes I stand on the beach and look out at the ocean, watch the ships coming and going, but... no, I've never travelled."

"I came here to start anew. The secrecies and the intrigues back home, I got so tired of them. I wanted to be somewhere else. Someone else. But it appears my reputation preceded me. Basilea the Sly they call me, don't they?"

"Yes."

"Then when I saw Irfan here, I couldn't believe it. To be confronted with my past like that so soon after deciding to get away from it."

I glanced at her sidelong. The lines of her face were still harsh, but now they seemed as fragile as our shattered reflections. I thought that perhaps I could see a tear in the corner of her eye. "You were not happy to see him, then?" I ventured.

"I was overjoyed to see him. I love him. When we were young, we pledged ourselves to one another. But I hear now that he is betrothed to someone else?"

"He is." I thought of what Irfan had asked me to do. In a wild, reckless move, I grabbed one of Basilea's hands in both of mine and pressed it to my chest, just beneath the hollow of my throat. Her skin was warm and pleasantly rough, like wood warmed in the sun. Her dark eyes met mine without betraying her emotions. She was a tree – solid, implacable.

"You deserve so much better than him, Basilea. You're beautiful and charismatic. Do what you set out to do and start a new life. One with someone who will appreciate you and only you." Letting go of her hand, I fumbled in the bag I keep secured to my belt, withdrawing a bouquet of dried wild-flowers, which I pushed into her unresisting hands. "Here, take these as a token of my favour."

"I have to go." Basilea broke away from me and left. But I noticed that she didn't drop the flowers.

Hardly able to believe what I had done, I wandered to the river that ran through the town. My mind was racing, but my body felt like it was drifting languidly, untethered. Reaching the water, I settled on my haunches and watched bubbles rising to the surface as fish swam to and fro.

A shadow fell across me.

"Bloodletter Merylana? Are you unwell?"

I looked up to find Dame Constance standing over me. I opened my mouth to reply, hesitated, and then closed it again. I'd already committed myself to Irfan's schemes. And he was a good friend. "I am lovesick," I told Constance.

Smiling prettily at me, she raised one eyebrow. "Who for?"

I took the plunge. "You." I went on one knee and took her hand. "Dame Constance, I wish to woo you."

She jerked her hand free as if my touch pained her. "My heart belongs to Irfan!"

"Then, please, forget I said anything."

"I most certainly shall!"

I nodded and rose to my feet. "I hope the two of you will be very happy together." My duty done, I went to find the instrument of my embarrassment – Irfan.

He was in his chambers, practising sword-fighting on a training dummy. I stood in the doorway and watched, admiring his technique. He was a skilled swordsman. His usual hood and robe hung across the back of a chair, exchanged for a simple tunic and hose. He was breathing far too heavily, I noticed.

"Remember to rest regularly, Irfan," I spoke up. "You shouldn't overwork your lungs."

He pirouetted, bringing the sword over his head in a sweeping blow that struck the training dummy's neck. "My opponent will not care about that in a fight to the death," he panted.

"Then you'll just have to make sure you finish him quickly."

Irfan turned to face me, using his sword to support his weight as he struggled to get his breath back. "Have you come to apologise for storming off last night?" He grinned impishly and any lingering ill will I felt towards him vanished.

"I've come to report my findings."

He became serious at that. "You tested Constance's and Basilea's loyalty to me?"

I nodded and told him all that I was prepared to reveal. When I had finished, he put his sword away and dressed in his hooded robe without a word. His expression was thoughtful. I waited for him to speak, feeling strangely anxious.

"Then it is decided," he said at last. My heart lurched in my chest. "I said I would marry the one who spurned your advances and it seems as though Constance was the woman that did so. Am I correct?"

I thought of Basilea saying she loved Irfan. I thought of her flinty eyes and her warm hands. I swallowed hard, feeling like an awful friend to both her and Irfan. "Yes, you are correct."

He smiled. "Then Constance is to be my wife!"

Deflated and miserable, I nodded. "Congratulations. I should go; I probably have patients waiting."

I was turning away when he called me back. "Merylana, look. I bought the ring this morning." He held out his hand to me. Nestled in his palm was a delicate band of gold, beautiful in its simplicity.

"It's lovely."

"As lovely as my betrothed," Irfan sighed happily. "And Merylana?"

"Yes?" I answered, thwarted in my attempt to leave once again.

"Thank you."

I walked home feeling like a villain. Had I done the right thing? Politically speaking, yes I had; but morally? And what of the attraction I felt for Basilea? It was selfish of me. Not that Irfan had behaved any better – he had allowed two women to believe that he loved them whilst using me to test their affection for him. And I had gone along with it, a willing accomplice! Whichever way I looked at it I was just as, if not more, wretched than he.

My waiting room was empty when I arrived. A shame, as I was in need of distraction from my racing thoughts. I fetched myself a goblet of wine and then slumped at my scribe table, sorting through the sheaves of papers strewn across its surface. I was arranging written diagnoses by date when my assistant burst into the room, his face flushed.

"Merylana, you must come to the town square!"

I pushed a strand of hair that had fallen loose back behind my ear, my muscles tensing as I half-rose from my chair. "Has there been an accident?"

"No. Irfan has asked Dame Constance to marry him and they are having the wedding now, right in the middle of the town square!"

I was so shocked that I forgot to finish standing up. I must have looked quite ridiculous, perched in mid-air like that, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Irfan was getting married at that very moment? Betrayal hit me like a physical blow. After all I had done to help him decide on a wife, he hadn't even bothered inviting me to the wedding. I had been left to find out about it from my assistant! For all of Irfan's noble talk about chivalry, it was obvious that he had no idea about the right way to treat his friends.

My thoughts were brought back to the moment by my assistant asking if I was all right.

"What? Oh, yes, thank you. Just a twinge in my back, that's all," I lied. Standing, I drained the last of the wine from my goblet.

"I could take a look, if you would like?" my assistant offered.

"No, that's all right; we have a wedding to go to!"

We walked to the town square together. Quite a crowd had gathered by the time we got there. Irfan and Dame Constance stood at the centre of a group of onlookers, apparently oblivious to their audience. They seemed to have only eyes for each other and they gazed adoringly at the aforementioned features as they exchanged the traditional marriage vows.

My gaze swept over the spectators and focused in one the one person I had hoped not to see – Basilea. Her face was blanched with fury. Slipping away from my assistant, I went to her side.

As I approached, she turned and snarled something at me in a language I didn't understand, but from her tone could guess was nothing complimentary.

"How could he choose that spoiled little milksop over me?" she demanded to know.

Against my better judgement, I decided to come clean with her. "Because I helped him decide between the two of you." Seeing her reach into her robes, I guess she was going for a weapon and hurriedly tried to explain myself. "Irfan is still very much in love with you, Basilea, he realised that when you came here. But he is in love with Dame Constance too and he can only belong to one woman. You know how he is."

Basilea nodded, but I could see the outline of her fist clutching a dagger handle beneath her robe. I swiped at the sweat that had suddenly sprung into being on my brow. The sound of the wedding had faded into an indistinct roar in my ears, like the sound of the distant sea. My mouth was dry.

"So," I continued, "he tasked me with testing you loyalties to him by wooing you."

"Then what you said to me by the well, it was all a lie? A trick?"

"No, I meant every word of it." Shocked, I realised that this was the truth. "I meant it more than I have ever meant anything in my life."

Basilea's hands slipped from her robe. I flinched, until I saw that they were empty. I took them into my own hands. Once again, my skin thrilled at the touch of hers, so warm and capable. The harsh scowl left her face to be replaced with a look of mischief.

"Well, you know what they say," she told me with mock solemnity, "if you can't be with the one you love..."

"...Love the one you're with," I finished for her.

"What do you say we crash the party and make this a double wedding?"

Laughing, I drew her towards me and we shared our first kiss. Around us, the crowd cheered.


End file.
